The best artist has that thought alone Which is contained within the marble shell; The sculptor's hand can only break read more

The best artist has that thought alone Which is contained within the marble shell; The sculptor's hand can only break the spell To free the figures slumbering in the stone

Not from a vain or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias brought.

Not from a vain or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias brought.

A sculptor wields
The chisel, and the stricken marble grows
To beauty.

A sculptor wields
The chisel, and the stricken marble grows
To beauty.

A Mercury is not made out of any block of wood.
[Lat., Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius.]

A Mercury is not made out of any block of wood.
[Lat., Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius.]

In sculpture did ever anybody call the Apollo a fancy piece? Or
say of the Laocoon how it might read more

In sculpture did ever anybody call the Apollo a fancy piece? Or
say of the Laocoon how it might be made difference? A
masterpiece of art has in the mind a fixed place in the chain of
being, as much as a plant or a crystal.

I did my sculpture as a painter. I did not work as a sculptor.

I did my sculpture as a painter. I did not work as a sculptor.

I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need.

I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need.

Sculpture is more than painting. It is greater
To raise the dead to life than to create
read more

Sculpture is more than painting. It is greater
To raise the dead to life than to create
Phantoms that seem to live.

And the cold marble leapt to life a God.

And the cold marble leapt to life a God.